1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a print control apparatus, print control method, and memory medium for performing a band process.
2. Related Background Art
The processing operation of a conventional printing apparatus will now be described with reference to the a flowchart shown in FIG. 8.
FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example of a data processing procedure of a conventional printing apparatus. Reference numerals (1) to (9) denote processing steps.
First, in step (1), a check is made to see if a bit map developing process of one band is finished. If YES, the processing routine is finished. If NO, a CPU analyzes character code data for every character (2) and first discriminates whether a font of the relevant character has been registered in a compressed font cache memory (3). If it is decided that the font has been registered, its compressed font is decompressed by a decompressor (8) and developed into a band memory (9).
If it is decided in step (3) that the font is not registered, a check is made to see if it has been registered in the compressed font in the font ROM (4). If YES, the compressed font is decompressed by a decompressor (8) and is developed in the band memory (9).
If it is determined in step (4) that the font is not registered, a scalable font corresponding to the character is read out from a scalable font in the font ROM and is scaled by the CPU (5). The scaled font is developed into the band memory (5-1). A bit map font of the character is compressed by a compressor (6) and is registered into a compressed font cache memory (7). The processing routine is then returned to step (1).
As mentioned above, in the foregoing conventional printing apparatus, even in a case where a certain character lies across a plurality of bands, the same character font is decompressed every band by the decompressor and the corresponding portion is read out and developed into the band memory. There is consequently a problem that band processing efficiency deteriorates.